I finished How to Teach Physics To Your Dog by Chad Orzel about a month ago, and have found myself thinking about it off and on during that time.  For the difficult subject of Quantum Physics, Orzel does a very good job conveying unintuitive concepts so that a non-physicist might understand them.  The book takes the format of Orzel teaching physics to his dog through many conversations that are often humorous and always lead to an in-depth discussion regarding Quantum Physics.  Having read a few other books on Physics and at least one other book on Quantum Physics, I was familiar with several of the concepts.  However, Orzel did a very good job diving into a level of detail that I had no previously seen, despite the accessibility of his writing style.

Quantum Physics flies in the face of common sense.  Our brains evolved with macro cause and effect, with objects that are solid and act in a fashion that we expect.  Particles at the quantum scale do not act solid, do not act in a fashion that our brain would expect, yet this science and been experimentally proven to a level that is only rivaled by the evidence for evolution or relativity.

One of my favorite sections of the book addresses quackery and popular misconceptions around quantum physics.  Orzel does a good job comparing and contrasting the science with the misconceptions perpetrated by these quacks, and by the media.

I would highly recommend this book for anyone looking to learn more about Quantum Physics.

Every once in a while I read a book that is truly amazing, a book that leaves keeps me thinking about it during those times of the day when my thoughts wander.  Godel, Escher and Bach is such a book, as is The Singularity is Near.  Last night I finished another such book, In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of the Mind by Eric R. Kandel.  As you might expect from the title, the book is primarily concerned with the sciences related to the brain and in particular the science of memory.  However, Dr. Kandel’s book not only is a wonderfully vivid discussion of neural science over the past century and a half, but a touching autobiography.

Kandel, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, was born a Jew, in Vienna, in 1929.  At age 10 the Nazis “invaded” Austria, and within the year he found himself in America.  Its is within the context of this start to life that he tells of his search for the biological basis of Freud’s theories, which ultimately leads him to the research of memory, many accolades, and an important place in medical and scientific history.

The science in the book is fascinating.  Kandel himself is a pioneer in neural science, but he spends many pages in each chapter discussing the brilliant women and men with which he has worked, many of whom have also won The Nobel Prize.  Kandel is a very talented writer, and exceptionally good at conveying complex scientific concepts to the lay reader.  The science of the mind is surely the most difficult of all of the medical sciences, and Kandel goes into detail while leaving the book accessible to the non-scientist.

When Kandel speaks of his past, his relationship to Europe and Vienna, his friends, and his family, he is particularly candid and touching.  The emotional depth of the book was surprising for me.  The man is clearly passionate about many things, and those passions ring through true and clear in the book.

At the end of reading the book I found my understanding of brain biology much greater, but I also found that I had learned a new aspect of the history World War II.  I also found that this man, who is obviously a talented scientist, is also Pulitzer-caliber author.  His writing is of such that I would wonder if this book might have won The Pulitzer if not for its scientific depth.

I cannot recommend this book enough.  It is one I am sure I will find myself revisiting in years to come.

I just finished reading Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science.  The book covers the development of atomic theory, quantum theory, and most importantly, quantum mechanics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  The central figures are the de facto fathers of modern physics.  The author, David Lindley, doesn’t delve too deeply into the math or even hard science of the topic but instead focuses on the personalities of Born, Bohr, The Curries, Einstein, Heisenberg and others prominently represented in the book.

The author could have taken a deeper dive into the actual physics.  Throughout much of the book Einstein and Company battle Heisenberg and Company for “the soul of science” aka Einstein’s more classical views vs. Heisenberg’s quantum mechanics.  I would have appreciated a more thorough discussion of which concepts have really taken hold in quantum mechanics.  For example, Lindley discussed how the Schrödinger’s cat analogy (Schrödinger being from the Einstein camp) has been abandoned by modern physicists as misrepresenting what is know about quantum mechanics.  What are the facts, as understood by the leading physicists today?  I would have happily read another 10 or 20 pages covering what has made it into the modern view, and what hasn’t.  That being said, this book did a marvelous job framing the arguments so that they can be understood by the lay person.  The characters are brought to life and humanized.  I felt the author treated everyone more than fairly.  I would recommend it to anyone wanting a better idea of quantum mechanics without having to learn too much science.